and clearly mirrored the universe with those who have rightly analysed it. But among all the arts it is only poetry that can confer this supreme kind of fame, because speech is the only mirror in which the whole universe can be reflected. With colours or in marble we can express only what we see, but there is nothing that the mind can think which cannot be uttered in speech. And, therefore, in the poetry of all ages we possess, as it were, a shifting view of the universe as it has appeared to successive generations of men. According to the predominant inclination of the human mind in each age is the poetry of that age. At one time it is busy with the brave deeds of the hero, the contest and the laurel wreath, at another time with mere enjoyment, with wine and love. Then it describes the struggle of man against destiny, heroic fortitude and endurance in the midst of little hope; at another time it pictures man as in probation, purified in adversity, and having a hope beyond the grave. At one time it becomes idyllic, delights in country life, simple pleasures, simple loves, a wholesome and peaceful existence; at another time it loves cities, and deals in refinements, courtesies, gallantries, gaieties. And sometimes it takes a philosophical tone, delights in the grandeur of eternal laws, aspires to communion with the soul of the world, or endeavours to discover, in the construction of things, the traces of a beneficent plan. So far the mind of the artist is passive. Its function so far is to receive impressions from without and to reflect them faithfully. But then comes in that other principle, which we may call the active principle of Art, the principle of regularity or rhythm. The mass of impressions received from without is reduced to shape and unity by the artist. And in this shaping, arrangement, and unification he may show as much mastery as in the correctness of his imitation of Nature. But now it is to be noticed that the taste for imitation and the taste for regularity or rhythm are very distinct things. Often no oftener than not, but it sometimes happens that an artist has one but not the other, and very often that he has the two faculties in very unequal degrees. Hence there are in Art, and have been ever since Art began, two styles, two schools, two tendencies, which are always at war, by turns almost victorious, but never quite destroying their foe. The watchword of the one school is nature; with them Art is nothing but careful observation and exact representation; they deify nature, and almost think it a sin to exercise any choice among the materials she presents to them. The other school think more of what the artist gives than of what he finds; to them Nature is the quarry out of which Art draws shapeless blocks, and informs them with beauty, Nature is the chaos out of which Art makes a Cosmos. The besetting sin of the first school is ugliness; the besetting sin of the last is falseness and feebleness. All through history these schools have contended, and indeed you have little else in the history of Art but the perpetual veering of fashion and opinion between these two extremes. There is but one other question, which has been so much debated between artists, and this is the question with which I began, whether Art exists for pleasure or for moral improvement. I said that the confusion which generally seems to the lay-world to reign in Art criticism was not so great as it appeared, and that great judges do not differ in Art so irreconcilably as they themselves love to declare. I have now put before you the two great points of difference to which almost all disagreements in Art may be traced. It is a clue through the maze of Art-criticism to know that its intricacies are caused mainly by two fundamental disagreements. Let me repeat the two great questions of debate. The first is the question whether Art exists for pleasure, or for instruction and moral improvement. The second is the question how much Art derives from Nature, and how much Art adds to Nature. latter controversy does not much affect the greatest artists. They are for the most part practically above it. It is the second class of artists who run into mere imitation, like the Dutch school of painting, or to false prettiness, like the pastoral poets. And so with critics, it is generally an immature taste that excludes and condemns either the Realist or the Idealistic school. Young readers of poetry who have a strong sense of rhythm, and a strong appreciation of what is formed, finished, and regular in conception, delight in Milton, and for a time find Shakespeare slovenly, loose, irregular. On the other hand, those who have strong feelings and a strong sense of reality delight in Shakspeare, and find Milton cold and unreal. At the present day it is the lovers of rhythm, form, and harmony that stand firm by Tennyson, the lovers of reality and variety desert him for Browning. Of course of these two factions one or the other must be right,-Tennyson must be greater than Browning, or he must be less. But assuredly both these artists, and all really great artists, are Realists and Idealists at once. Milton did not know Nature nearly so well as Shakespeare, but assuredly he had a keen eye for reality, as well as a powerful imagination to form new combinations above Nature and greater than Nature; Shakespeare had not Milton's stateliness nor his elaborate and complex rhythms, but assuredly he too had Art as well as Nature, form as well as matter, unity as well as variety. All the great artists both draw from Nature and add to Nature. If Tennyson is exquisite in form and composition, he is also faithful in imitation and rich in knowledge; if Browning is inexhaustible in knowledge and variety, there are rhythms in him too, if quaint ones, methods, if difficult to follow, unity, or a powerful struggle for it. SILCOTE OF SILCOTES. BY HENRY KINGSLEY, AUTHOR OF "RAVENSHOE," "THE HILLYARS AND THE BURTONS," ETC. CHAPTER XLII. THE CONFERENCE ON THE RAMPARTS IS INTERRUPTED BY AN OLD FRIEND. WITH the cool breeze blowing from Aspern on her face, the Princess turned towards Kriegsthurm. She felt that in some way her silly scheming if it might be called scheming-so obstinately carried out, was unsuccessful; and that Kriegsthurm, the well-paid minister of her follies, the agent in all her silly schemes, was face to face with her. She had come to Vienna, believing that Kriegsthurm was so deeply committed to the revolutionary party, to Frangipanni the Italian Constitutionalist on the one hand, and to Boginsky the out dare not follow her into the lion's paws. She was quite deceived. His was a knight move against a castle; to go to whist, she had played the last trump out, and he had come in with an overpowering suit. Kriegsthurm was not inclined to let such an exceedingly wellyielding head of cattle stray out of his pasture; and so, on the strength of his being known to the Austrian police as the most clever, unscrupulous, and bestinformed spy in Europe, he had made his peace with the Austrian Government, and followed his dear Princess to Vienna, with a view of "working" the Princess and receiving pay from the Austrian police at one and the same time. So much about him for the present. "Madame has not served me well," he began, when the Princess turned to The time may come, if Madame continues her present course of action, when I may say that Madame has served me shamefully and shabbily." The poor Princess, softened perhaps by the wind from Aspern, began to cry; and to wish, strangely enough, but with a true instinct, that her very objectionable nephew, Arthur, was there, or even old Miss Raylock, to confront this rascal. But she was all alone, and wept. So Kriegsthurm went on. "The time may come when I may have to say to Madame that it is hopeless for her to attempt to escape me. That I hold Madame in the hollow of my hand. That I love her she need not be told, but ingratitude of the most traitorous kind may extinguish love. I may have to say all this at some future time; at present I do not. Madame has proposed this secluded meeting herself, knowing that she could not propose a public one; but she will see that I am all-powerful, and that I must be treated with confidence." The Princess had not yet got through her softened mood, and was still crying. The fool got contemptuous of her, of her, the most Silcote of the Silcotes"the incarnation of Silcotism," as Miss Raylock once said, who ought to know; and in his contempt for her he leaped too quickly to his first object, and began his business exactly at the wrong end. "I want money, Madame. poor." She wiped her eyes directly. always do want money," she said. wonder what you do with it all. I have not got any." I am "You "I But "Madame has eighty thousand pounds' worth of jewellery. I must have some of that." Had he not himself told Tom Silcote that very night that she would see him, Tom, deeply as she loved him, in the workhouse (or to that effect), before she would part with a single stone? Yet this fool and conspirator (are they not now and then convertible terms?) proposed for himself what he would never have proposed for her darling Tom. would never have made such a blunder, and would never have made such a venture. But of what nation was Kriegsthurm again? It was a foolish venture, and the tables were at once turned for a time. Kriegsthurm proposed to her to touch her sacred accumulations. The attorney blood which was in her from her father's side, and the old English land accumulative blood which was in her from her mother's side, alike rose in rebellion to this demand, flushed her cheek, and, strange to say, passed back to her brain, and set her wits a-going. And she had been to Italy and seen the theatricalities, and could imitate them on occasions; as Master Kriegsthurm will bear witness to his dying day. She gave him one instance of this now, and he never asked for another. They were standing together under a lonely gas-lamp, which was burning steadily within its glass, in spite of the wandering wind which came from Aspern, and they could see one another's faces. His was confident, bold, and coarse (to refresh your memory after so long, he was a square, coarse-featured man, with a red complexion). Hers was pale, thin, and refined, with the remains of a very great beauty. They stood and looked at one another; he, at least, looked at her until he saw that she was not looking at him, but over his shoulder, at which time he began to feel an uneasy sensation in his back. Still he looked at her steadily. And her face changed as he watched it. The eyes grew more prominent, the lips parted; she was gazing at something which he dared not turn and face: gazing over his right shoulder, too, most unpleasantly. No one would care to have, say for instance Lady Macbeth, looking steadily over your right shoulder, while you were perfectly conscious that Malcolm's mishap was not your first offence. The Princess of Castelnuovo stared so very steadily over Kriegsthurm's right shoulder that she had frightened him out of his wits before latter controversy does not much affect the greatest artists. They are for the most part practically above it. It is the second class of artists who run into mere imitation, like the Dutch school of painting, or to false prettiness, like the pastoral poets. And so with critics, it is generally an immature taste that excludes and condemns either the Realist or the Idealistic school. Young readers of poetry who have a strong sense of rhythm, and a strong appreciation of what is formed, finished, and regular in conception, delight in Milton, and for a time find Shakespeare slovenly, loose, irregular. On the other hand, those who have strong feelings and a strong sense of reality delight in Shakspeare, and find Milton cold and unreal. At the present day it is the lovers of rhythm, form, and harmony that stand firm by Tennyson, the lovers of reality and variety desert him for Browning. Of course of these two factions one or the other must be right,-Tennyson must be greater than Browning, or he must be less. But assuredly both these artists, and all really great artists, are Realists and Idealists at once. Milton did not know Nature nearly so well as Shakespeare, but assuredly he had a keen eye for reality, as well as a powerful imagination to form new combinations above Nature and greater than Nature; Shakespeare had not Milton's stateliness nor his elaborate and complex rhythms, but assuredly he too had Art as well as Nature, form as well as matter, unity as well as variety. All the great artists both draw from Nature and add to Nature. If Tennyson is exquisite in form and composition, he is also faithful in imitation and rich in knowledge; if Browning is inexhaustible in knowledge and variety, there are rhythms in him too, if quaint ones, methods, if difficult to follow, unity, or a powerful struggle for it. SILCOTE OF SILCOTES. BY HENRY KINGSLEY, AUTHOR OF "RAVENSHOE," "THE HILLYARS AND THE BURTONS," ETC. CHAPTER XLII. THE CONFERENCE ON THE RAMPARTS IS INTERRUPTED BY AN OLD FRIEND. WITH the cool breeze blowing from Aspern on her face, the Princess turned towards Kriegsthurm. She felt that in some way her silly scheming if it might be called scheming-so obstinately carried out, was unsuccessful; and that Kriegsthurm, the well-paid minister of her follies, the agent in all her silly schemes, was face to face with her. She had come to Vienna, believing that Kriegsthurm was so deeply committed to the revolutionary party, to Frangipanni the Italian Constitutionalist on the one hand, and to Boginsky the out dare not follow her into the lion's paws. She was quite deceived. His was a knight move against a castle; to go to whist, she had played the last trump out, and he had come in with an overpowering suit. Kriegsthurm was not inclined to let such an exceedingly wellyielding head of cattle stray out of his pasture; and so, on the strength of his being known to the Austrian police as the most clever, unscrupulous, and bestinformed spy in Europe, he had made his peace with the Austrian Government, and followed his dear Princess to Vienna, with a view of "working" the Princess and receiving pay from the Austrian police at one and the same time. So much about him for the present. Madame has not served me well," he began, when the Princess turned to The time may come, if Madame continues her present course of action, when I may say that Madame has served me shamefully and shabbily." The poor Princess, softened perhaps by the wind from Aspern, began to cry; and to wish, strangely enough, but with a true instinct, that her very objectionable nephew, Arthur, was there, or even old Miss Raylock, to confront this rascal. But she was all alone, and wept. So Kriegsthurm went on. "The time may come when I may have to say to Madame that it is hopeless for her to attempt to escape me. That I hold Madame in the hollow of my hand. That I love her she need not be told, but ingratitude of the most traitorous kind may extinguish love. I may have to say all this at some future time; at present I do not. Madame has proposed this secluded meeting herself, knowing that she could. not propose a public one; but she will see that I am all-powerful, and that I must be treated with confidence." The Princess had not yet got through her softened mood, and was still crying. The fool got contemptuous of her, of her, the most Silcote of the Silcotes"the incarnation of Silcotism," as Miss Raylock once said, who ought to know; and in his contempt for her he leaped too quickly to his first object, and began his business exactly at the wrong end. "I want money, Madame. poor." She wiped her eyes directly. always do want money," she said. wonder what you do with it all. I have not got any." I am "You "I But "Madame has eighty thousand pounds' worth of jewellery. I must have some of that." Had he not himself told Tom Silcote that very night that she would see him, Tom, deeply as she loved him, in the workhouse (or to that effect), before she would part with a single stone? Yet this fool and conspirator (are they not now and then convertible terms?) proposed for himself what he would never have proposed for her darling Tom. would never have made such a blunder, and would never have made such a venture. But of what nation was Kriegsthurm again? It was a foolish venture, and the tables were at once turned for a time. Kriegsthurm proposed to her to touch her sacred accumulations. The attorney blood which was in her from her father's side, and the old English land accumulative blood which was in her from her mother's side, alike rose in rebellion to this demand, flushed her cheek, and, strange to say, passed back to her brain, and set her wits a-going. And she had been to Italy and seen the theatricalities, and could imitate them on occasions; as Master Kriegsthurm will bear witness to his dying day. She gave him one instance of this now, and he never asked for another. They were standing together under a lonely gas-lamp, which was burning steadily within its glass, in spite of the wandering wind which came from Aspern, and they could see one another's faces. His was confident, bold, and coarse (to refresh your memory after so long, he was a square, coarse-featured man, with a red complexion). Hers was pale, thin, and refined, with the remains of a very great beauty. They stood and looked at one another; he, at least, looked at her until he saw that she was not looking at him, but over his shoulder, at which time he began to feel an uneasy sensation in his back. Still he looked at her steadily. And her face changed as he watched it. The eyes grew more prominent, the lips parted; she was gazing at something which he dared not turn and face: gazing over his right shoulder, too, most unpleasantly. No one would care to have, say for instance Lady Macbeth, looking steadily over your right shoulder, while you were perfectly conscious that Malcolm's mishap was not your first offence. The Princess of Castelnuovo stared so very steadily over Kriegsthurm's right shoulder that she had frightened him out of his wits before |